My Son Wanted One Thing for Christmas, and I Couldn't Find It

My son leaned against Santa's legs, making sure the big man could see the booklet of train toys he was carrying in his three-year-old hands. He opened it up, spoke earnestly, and pointed. "Ah," Santa said, "you'd like the Metro North train," the last words spoken extra loudly in the direction of me and my husband. He might have even winked. We stood to the side, delighted and a little smug because our child wanted just one thing for Christmas: a wooden train.

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It was December 21. Not, in retrospect, the best day to take your child to see Santa. But when you know his life revolves around trains, and he studies the toy company's booklet like it's his life's work, you don't worry. Yesterday he wanted the B train. At breakfast he wanted the F. So we were just waiting for the final decision, to be shared with Santa himself.

"I'll go by Grand Central after work," I whispered to my husband, who was taking our son home as I headed back to the office.

Four hours later, I stood staring at the wall of toy trains at the Transit Museum Store, where you can buy subway socks, toys, mousepads, books, keychains, neckties. But not, it seemed, a Metro North train. Amazed that I couldn't see it on the shelf — there's a picture of it in the booklet, I reminded myself — I finally asked an employee if they had any in the back.

"The Metro North? Oh no, they discontinued that one."

"No, no," I said. "It's in my son's booklet, the one that comes with the other trains."

"Sorry," he said. "I know it's weird, but we haven't had one in over a year."

I panicked, until I remembered eBay's existence, so I left the store and headed home. But between no Wi-Fi in the subway and putting my train-lover to bed, it wasn't until around 9 p.m. — yes, 9 p.m., just days before Christmas Eve — that I realized I had an actual problem.

There was no Metro North train on eBay. (At least, not the very specific wooden one he wanted. So before you send me links to the monstrously big electric Metro North train that exists in the world: that's not it). And, of course, there was nothing on Craig's List. "Sold out"/"Not available"/"We'll email you when it's back in stock!" appeared on every site that still had it listed among the perfectly available Long Island Rail Road, New Jersey Transit, and so manyother trains.

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In mild but still hopeful desperation, I posted about my dilemma on my local community Yahoo group (Yahoo group, I know). I explained the train was no longer made, but did anybody have a kid who has slightly outgrown his love of trains and perhaps still has a Metro North train from a few years ago?

By the next day, I had a few responses. Most were unhelpful: "Try the Transit Museum store," suggested one. Thanks a lot, amateur, I thought. "Most of those trains look alike; maybe you can get the Long Island Rail Road or something," another said. I resisted the urge to write back to say that a) this person had obviously never met a three-year-old with an obsession and b) my child is the only person I've ever known and will ever know in my life who noticed that it's the Metro North Railroad but the Long Island Rail Road. Trust me, he will notice if Santa gets it wrong.

A lot of people invested in our little Christmas problem — they wanted my little boy to be happy, and, not insignificantly, they wanted to help me out too.

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But then, bright spots: Around noon, a mother wrote to me to say that they had a bucket full of trains that hadn't been played with in a year. She would look when she got home from work. Other people suggested under-the-radar toy stores to call. To a person, everyone who answered the phone was sympathetic — especially the guy at the old-fashioned toy train store — but nobody had one. My coworkers did not think I was crazy. One posted about the hunt on her neighborhood's Facebook group. Another, I learned later, stopped at a locally run toy store in her town that night.

The mom from the Yahoo group went to her storage unit to look for me — we'd never met, and she braved a New York City storage unit for my child. But she didn't have a Metro North. When I got that email late on the 22nd, while I was starting to pack for our holiday trip to Chicago, I knew the search was over. He was three, and he wanted just one thing from Santa but I couldn't produce it.

In the end, Santa wrote him a letter with a sparkly pen saying that he wouldn't be able to make or find a Metro North train in time for Christmas, but he would bring him another one if he had his Mommy write down which one he wanted and leave the note under the tree. He thought about it seriously, then asked for the New Jersey Transit. (They had it, don't worry.) Then, unbeknownst to me and my husband, my mother-in-law, who lives near Chicago, got my son a Green Line train and put it in his stocking. All our photos of the moment he found that one are blurry, because he was so thrilled he could not stop jumping and flailing and hugging his Green Line train.

This year, he wants the 5 train, which is a tiny bit hard to find (it's why it's one of three or four in the entire NYC subway system he doesn't have by now), but I've had it tucked away since early October. But he has not forgotten the train he wanted: There have been a handful of times over the last year that he has mentioned, with sweet sadness, that Santa wasn't able to bring him the Metro North. It amazes me that he believes in Santa at all, when it's so patently obvious that a real Santa would have figured this out.

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It's a small thing, I know, this disappointment both he and I still have over a toy train. But it hints at what's to come — the things I won't be able to do for him, much as I try, and the imperfect things he'll have to make peace with. I know I'll look back and wish our biggest problem was the discontinuation of the toy Metro North train. But there'll always be this: There turned out to be a lot of people who got invested in our little Christmas problem — they wanted my little boy to be happy, and not insignificantly, they wanted to help me out too. That, of course, is what Christmas is really all about, and someday I'll tell him so.